How about getting Millsy back and offering him a transition to coaching after he retires? 

Lol he wont come back here.  He can do a UEFA licence over in england 

I think he believes his future lies in England.

Can we go after Ancelotti rofl

-PB

If CCM get a point off Sydney (unlikely) and we lose to the Nix (quite likely) we'll be on the bottom of the ladder for the first time in our club's history (not counting the first four rounds of a season).

Not sure if we'll crack our record low A-League crowd of 8,287, but we could be looking at our first four figure crowd in over eight years, something we've only achieved twice before. Our crowd on Jan 5th at home to Jets will probably even worse if we get gaped in the xmas derby.

History in the making.

Unfortunately MV are already at the bottom. The ladder is a bit deceptive because of the bye rounds so it's better to look at points per game. MV are already comfortably at the bottom because we have played more games than most of the other clubs.

CLUB	GAMES PLAYED	POINTS	POINTS PER GAME
SFC	8	21	2.625
MC	8	16	2.000
AU	8	15	1.875
WU	9	13	1.444
WP	8	10	1.250
WSW	8	10	1.250
NJ	7	8	1.143
PG	8	9	1.125
BR	8	8	1.000
CCM	7	7	1.000
MV	9	8	0.889

Absolutely CCM have two games in hand, but it's not really correct to say we're currently the bottom. Don't worry, we'll get there soon though!

Didnt we cop the spoon in season 1??

Knights did.

They only won 1 game and finished with 6 points.

We released Carlo Armiento and he's reportedly about to join you guys.

I totally forgot that.  

Done deal

https://www.adelaidenow.com.au/subscribe/news/1/?sourceCode=AAWEB_WRE170_a_GGL&dest=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.adelaidenow.com.au%2Fsport%2Ffootball%2Fa-league%2Fteams%2Fadelaide%2Fmelbourne-victory-snatch-another-young-red-from-adelaide-united%2Fnews-story%2Fc23c3278c1892820063a55d9fd330fe6&memtype=anonymous&mode=premium&nk=02da5179deb881b92b6cb4249e9b21ed-1576130121

-PB

4 clean sheets from 10 games; 9 goals scored in 10 games, and only scored more than 1 on 1 occasion.

Clear to me that the defence is solid, but lacking in the final third. 3 strikers with world cup pedigree up there, just need a linkman in that number 10 role to get the ball in transition and feed the strikers. Must be looking at bolstering that number 10 role and midfield stocks in the January window!

Well said.It's a shite situation for us to be in, but it seems like a no. 10 would go a long way to fixing the situation. I personally wish we had of kept Jimmy T for 1 more season...although I wasn't disappointed he left, but he would be so useful right now. Oh the hindsight!!

Funny thing is that the results aren't exactly surprising when you think about it. We have replaced a midfield of Troisi, Honda, Antonis and Valeri with a bunch of random visa players (albeit with somewhat ok resumes). It shouldn't be a shock at all that the midfield is lacking.

Troisi is nothing more than a serviceable, solid, a-league player - shows glimpses of what he can do, but more often than not lacks any end product. Similar to Kosta B - had all the attributes to be a world beater, but lacked that consistency to take him to Europe and do well. The real loss was Antonis - box to box midfielder, who could put in a tackle in his own half, then pop up and score minutes later. That hard runner is what is missing!
Can understand the signings Trimboli made in the off season - all had the pedigree of long european club careers, barring Dobras, who i think they were hoping could be the next Broich or Berisha, coming from lower tiers of europe, still at a decent age, and possibly needed a fresh start.
The search for a number 10 'fantasista' should be on, and id assume the club will go for a more tried and tested option, rather than an unknown european player from a lower tier this time. 

They don't have any visa spots left. Even if they wanted a euro player they would need to either release one of the current visa players or somehow manage to transfer one of them to an international club in Jan.

I was hoping they were trying to squeeze out Dobras, but that seems unlikely now if he played last week. 

Unfortunately it's not always that simple. If they did tell him he is no longer require they would still need to pay out his contract or somehow manage to get him to agree to termination without paying out the contract. That's a big ask if he doesn't want to leave. If he is on a pretty high wage (which he most likely is), that's a good chunk of the cap being wasted and there is not much that can be done about it.

Someone didn't do thorough homework on their foreign signings....Paul Trimboli....

Makes you wonder what due diligence is done by the clubs when they engage in visa player signings. If the club wanted to make the jump to the next level, they would be best to throw a sum of money - not too much, at a Mathieu Delpierre type person, who understands the a league, and can be that European correspondent / scout, to sign European players; as opposed to the current model which involves shark player agents and youtube clips. 
Of course he'd get the odd signing wrong, but having that person as the correspondent, in the long run would be beneficial, and potentially make the club some money if they can on sell a player to an overseas club. Just a thought

With MV in particular, if we look at the last 5 seasons (prior to this one) the visa players have been either good or excellent. There hasn't really been any absolute duds over that period. This season however we only have one good visa player (Ola) and the rest so far have been well under par. So with such a good success rate with visa players in recent history, the question needs to be asked what has gone wrong this season.

18/19

• Georg Niedermeier
• Keisuke Honda
• Kosta Barbarouses
• Raúl Baena
• Ola Toivonen
  

Spot on post.
We’ve got it so right in the last 5 years but this year we have got it so wrong

According to FVS when Kurz came to the club he said he recruiting wasn't his responsibility and Trimboli had to then rush to sign Visa players. How much of our great recruitment has previously been handled by Muscat?

I've heard Muscat was pretty hands on when it came to recruitment. Something he learned from working under Ange.

Maxi Beister?

Yeah he didn't quite work out, only appeared in 9 games. He played 123 minutes in total and scored one goal. At least he had the professionalism to put his hand up and say 'this isn't working for me' and agreed to terminate the contract.

Probably a fair assessment based on his time there, but Troisi in the deeper midfield role he's currently playing at AU would walk into MV's current "midfield" (in a 4-3-3).

Good grief, what a contrast to this season 

Heard today that Corey Brown is going back to Roar in Jan window.